Pokemon Sun LP, Part 13: Death and the Reaper

Last we left off, we captured two Xurkitree, and I bugger off to return to Looker and Anabel. Anabel is super-vertigo and whatnot, and apparently it's because the Ultra Beasts seem to target her and consider her an enemy. There's a bit of a quick talk with Nanu around this point too, I think, but not before a sighting of UB-04 Blade is told to me. Apparently Blade (a.k.a. Kartana) is a super-sharp little bugger that can cut through anything. Which doesn't sound impressive, mind you... she's a teeny-tiny dainty little origami person with the face of one of those paper-folded fortune telling things until you read her pokedex entry and it talks about how it can slice up buildings and shit. What the fuck!

Also, there are FOUR Kartana, all of them in Malie Garden or... some other route, I forgot. I like Malie Garden's music a lot, though, so I wander around there. Kartana hits like a monstrous truck, even harder than Buzzwole did, and she's Grass/Steel... but honestly I actually find capturing Kartana far easier than the Buzzwole and Xurkitree missions. I'm not sure why. I even captured one of the four in a regular Pokeball just for shits and giggles! It's a bit too much, honestly, even for a version-exclusive Ultra Beast. I think I spent far more time dodging Cottonees and Araquanids and Masquerains than I did actually fighting the Kartanas.

Really wished the NPCs around me would react and act in horror at the arrival of these monstrous beings like how the Aether Foundation employees are shaking in fear when Nihilego appeared from a dimensional breach back during the main storyline, but hey.

If you didn't nickname your Kartana
"Papercut", you suck.

Anyway, four Kartanas in the box later, and I return to Looker and Anabel. Even more scenes of Anabel having a headache, and she heads off before Nanu arrives. Nanu and Looker apparently worked together with a certain 'Faller', which is a term they use for people who came out of the Ultra Wormhole. The Ultra Beasts, confused and angry and lashing out and shit at being trapped in a different dimension, seek out similar aura or energy or whatever, and this causes them to attack Fallers. My character, having hung out in Ultra Space while gunning for Lusamine, is one... and apparently, so is Anabel! And Looker and Nanu's unnamed Faller partner, who apparently even comes from an alternate dimension. We know alternate dimensions exist from ORAS, so who is this mysterious 'Faller'? Nanu notes how this alternate dimension woman was used as bait by the International Police to bait one of the Ultra Beasts, but a lapse in judgment on Looker's part -- him feeling sorry for the Ultra Beast and not taking the shot -- caused their partner to straight-up get killed.

What the fuck! I mean, yeah, I'm totally cool with including death and drama in a Pokemon story, but still, considering how kiddified the games have been (the manga tend to have more death, though) it's a bit of a welcome, if still jarring, reference to someone actually dying and killed in combat against a powerful Pokemon (well, Beast) to boot.

And this fifth Ultra Beast, Guzzlord, has apparently crossed into Alola before where it caused the death of Looker's partner. Man, poor dude. He lost his partner, he probably lost his buddy Croagunk, and somehow in ORAS he lost his memory... dude, your life kind of sucks. I feel sorry for you even more now.

Easily the strongest non-Champion trainer.

Also, Anabel being a Faller... I'm not sure whether this means Anabel came from the Emerald dimension, because we know ORAS didn't have the Battle Frontier and a lot of the Emerald-exclusive characters like Anabel, Lucy, Noland and the rest didn't make it into ORAS... and all the games are like alternate universes and whatnot, so it's kind of a weird wrinkle into this whole thing.

Regardless of the fact, it doesn't appear to really add much to the present-day storyline beyond explaining Anabel's headaches. It does explain why the International Police needed me around, though -- it's not just because I'm a powerful trainer and champion of Alola, but because I'm a Faller myself. Granted, it seems that I didn't spend enough time in Ultra Space to have the headaches and whatnot that Anabel has... but that explains why the Ultra Beasts are drawn to Anabel and myself. But all that gets interrupted by Anabel informing us (finally breaking free of the Looker-feast repetitive comedy) that, oh no, a crisis is brewing! Nanu tells us that the Ultra Beast we're looking for is in Poni Island, so off to that place we go.

Upon which Looker and Nanu talk about Anabel and me being Fallers, and apparently Anabel fell on Poni Island beach amnesiac, not remembering anything but her name, her origin (Hoenn) and that she protected a tower. Apparently some shit happened in Hoenn? Did Hoenn get attacked by Ultra Beasts? She was taken in by the International Police and quickly joined, and surpassed her former boss, Looker. Whatever the case, though, Looker intentionally sent Anabel in the wrong direction to spare her from being attacked by the Ultra Beasts.

Don't mess with da boss.

Nanu then wants to battle me for the simple reason of 'why not?' and mother of all hell, his team is tough. It's not so much the levels and the sheer power that his team has (that Persian is a motherfucking tank to take down without using a super-effective Z-move, and that Krookodile is a lightning-fast Earthquake-creating machine) but the amount of non-Dark moves they have. Power Gem! Earthquake! Aerial Ace! And most irritatingly, Sucker Punching my poor Pokemon in the face. Honestly, Pokemon Refresh caused fake sturdy to trigger like three times in this battle. Good thing my Ribombee like really loves me.

Nanu buggers off, telling me that this particular Ultra Beast is in Resolution Cave... what the hell is that place? Looker notes that it's way past the Ancient Poni Path, so it's beyond the Poni Grove that I mucked around before. Awesomesauce. Looker calls Nanu '000'... is he like the founder of the Interpol? Or, shit, the first Double-0 Agent before James Bond waltzed into the scene? Curious. I wander around some of the areas of Poni Grove and Poni Plains that I haven't mucked around in previously, before heading up towards Resolution Cave. Also Primeapes apparently leap out from trees in this area. Which makes sense since they are monkeys, but it's not something that I honestly ever expected.

There are multiple exits, but thankfully I have a Rotom map with me, so I don't go wandering up the Eastern side of the island and presumably go all the way up to Battle Tree. I go up this rather misty area and walk around for a bit, challenging the few trainers that are around, catching the Sensu-style Oricorio and a random Barboach I fished up... there's pretty willow trees or whatever hanging down and I like the feel of the area. There's a cave in the lake that I'm not sure how to reach because I can't surf on it.

"Lust, can I eat this one?"

After a bit of a short area, I enter Resolution Cave. It's... a pretty barren cave. There are like two trainers, a bunch of items and a whole lotta Golbats and Dugtrios that I don't dare repel because I have to hunt down an Ultra Beast... and it turns out there's a second part of the cave, a boss chamber... and UB05 Glutton, otherwise known as the mighty Guzzlord appears! Its body extends to the back a bit more than I thought it would from official artwork, which makes it a lot cooler than just a waddling Pacman with claw-tentacles. There's a fair bit of Ankylosaur-style tail tapering off of the back of its body. I whittle Guzzlord down with my team and catch the boss of the Ultra Beasts in a Beast Ball. I like Guzzlord a fair bit! He's cool, even if his stat distribution is insanely weird, like Blissey where such a huge chunk of his stat distribution went to HP. Also, Guzzlord is extremely allergic to fairies... so yeah, probably not the best competitive battler out there? Hella cool and weird design, though.

Very, very interestingly, the layout of the final chamber of Resolution Cave seems very similar to Zygarde's chamber at the terminus of Terminus Cave, with four paths splayed out like an X that leads to items, and a stage at the center that... well, contains a single Zygarde Cell. Did Zygarde trave lall the way from Kalos to Alola to do battle against this extradimensional threat (Dexio and Sina did say that Zygarde originated from Kalos)? Is that the reason why the Zygarde in Kalos was only 50%? Is that the reason why the cells and cores were scattered all around Alola? Did Guzzlord and the other Ultra Beasts absolutely wreck Zygarde in battle? Is there an Ice-type Ultra Beast we don't know of yet?

Looker and Anabel tells me to return to Aether Paradise to report to Wicke. Anabel and Looker get some vacation time, Wicke helps to redeem Aether Foundation (even if all she did was provide balls) and the narration tells me that the Ultra Beast mission is over. But Looker did enter the scene talking about some big black object zipping through the skies of Melemele Island, black yet refracting light at the same time... which Wicke and Anabel dismiss as Looker being too tired because there were no reports of Ultra Wormholes opening or whatever. Anabel goes off on a lunch with Nanu, Looker goes off to have his feast, and I get some lore from Wicke about Xurkitree, Kartana and Guzzlord.

I take a bit of a detour to the Conservatory level to talk to Gladion, who thanks me, and apologizes for Lusamine's actions... but notes how Lusamine's insanity started when Gladion's father disappeared into an Ultra Wormhole, leaving nothing but research about Nihilego and the Ultra Beasts behind. Considering Gladion talks about how his father discovered Ultra Wormholes, and the Aether computers down below name Mohn -- the PokePelago dude Mohn -- as the professor who found the Ultra Wormholes in the first place... and it's honestly a bit weird that I can visit Mohn any time I want to. Did Mohn suffer from amnesia the way Anabel did? It's weird. Is there a way to talk to Mohn to restore his memory and have him go back to his family? I'll have to look it up...

But honestly, the main point of talking to Gladion is to get the free Type: Null from him, one of the two that were frozen in the basement. What about the third one, though? Is that one just left frozen because Gladion can't find someone else? I won't mind having a second Type: Null, I mean, it's probably not that good now that I see its fully-evolved stats, but hey, I'm a collector first and foremost. No? Okay then.

Of course, there's still the big black thing to deal with. It was something that I thought was an Ultra Beast before playing up to this point... but apparently it isn't? But also is? What is it? Well, it's somewhere in Melemele Island, and it took me a long, long time of just spamming Repel and checking out all the areas a Legendary Pokemon would be. Not in the hidden cave near Melemele Meadow, not in the city or the Malasada shop that Looker claimed he saw, not near the motel, not near my house, not Verdant Cavern... but apparently in Ten Carat Hill. Not the cave itself, but the grass. Where Necrozma just chills out like a regular Pokemon. What the hell? It's the hardest and weirdest Legendary to encounter, that's for sure, and I honestly half-expected a Roaming-style chase, but I ended up looking it up in the internet and apparently it's just, well, in the grass around Ten Carat Hill. For some reason.

Ooooo mystery!

Necrozma is weird as all hell. He's at level 75, a good chunk higher than the highest-leveled Pokemon I've seen so far which is the Level 70 Guzzlord... who I brought along to just tank Necrozma's hits. Necrozma is counted as a regular Pokemon. No Beast Boost ability, no totem aura, not even a catch rate bonus if I use a Beast Ball. I ended up catching Necrozma in a regular Pokeball, and, man, what a cool yet strange design. The Pokedex entry talk about how it came from 'another world in ancient times', which would imply Ultra Beast... and it is Psychic, which is a typing that Cosmog's family shares -- and they, too, came from Ultra Space. I think Necrozma is the same breed of Pokemon/Beast that Solgaleo and Lunala fall in, where they came from Ultra Space, are actually extra-dimensional, but are more Pokemon than alien the way Nihilego or Xurkitree are. I mean, the Pokedex entry straight up calls it "reminiscent of Ultra Beasts", and so does the narration after I capture it.

Also, it also shares its battle theme with Solgaleo, so there's definitely an implied connection. And Rotom-Dex classifies it as a Legendary Pokemon, not an Ultra Beast or a Land Spirit. Just what is this fucker?

Necrozma is such a cool yet weird design. Really like those huge clawed arms, though I'm not sure about how the back of his head looks like it's sawed off. It's still makes sense since it's supposed to represent a prism and how Necrozma can absorb light and launch a myriad of colours out in his signature move Prismatic Laser, though. I think it's going to be like Kyurem or Giratina, where they just randomly show up as a powerful Legendary in their respective original games, only for a sequel to reveal that they are actually intrinsically tied to Zekrom/Reshiram and Dialga/Palkia respectively.

Oh well, time to feed my mysterious death-in-form-of-crystal reaper-extradimensional-legendary-Pokemon some Poke Beans. He likes it.

Anyway, theory crafting aside (in the future I'll probably do a long theory talk about Ultra Beasts and Necrozma/Solgaleo/Lunala), I return to Looker with Necrozma in tow. Looker's pretty... chill about it, actually. He just goes 'oh, what an interesting rare Pokemon, this is definitely not an Ultra Beast just because I don't have any word from HQ.' Looker... you dense idiot. But hey, believe what you want to believe. I'm going to round up Necrozma, Solgaleo, several Ultra Beasts and a Tapu or two, and head back up to Lanakila and crush everyone.

Overall I really think that the post-game mission could've done with some revisions. Right around the halfway mark of the postgame it starts to get repetitive, and I really wished that the mission wasn't as simple as 'run around the grass at area X and capture the Ultra Beast'. Right now it's cool and everything, but a couple of games down the line and we'll look back at this and shake our head. Maybe one of them could've been like a Mew/Deoxys mini-game thing from Emerald, where you actually chase a sprite around? Maybe Guzzlord could be sitting at the end of Resolution Cave like a regular Legendary, and we actually have a climax for the Anabel storyline? I dunno. Right now I'm going to just muck around and have Necrozma destroy level 2 Ledybas.